Takeover Rumors Boost Xerox by $2.50 Per Share

NEW YORK — Shares of copier giant Xerox Corp. jumped in heavy trading Wednesday on talk that it might be a takeover target of British conglomerate Hanson PLC.

Xerox stock rose $2.50 to $67.50 on volume of more than 1.3 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

Wall Street analysts said Xerox could be vulnerable to a takeover by Hanson or another firm that might break up its diversified businesses, which range from insurance to stock brokerage, plus its well-known business machines.

“Speculation about Xerox has become so substantial because of the underlying values it has,” said analyst Eugene Glazer of Dean Witter Reynolds.

Analysts figured it would take $8.5 billion to $9 billion, or about $85 to $90 per share, to acquire Xerox.

Hanson, which has succeeded in a number of takeovers in the United States but has been inactive recently, is considered capable of pulling off such a feat, with a $7 billion war chest, analysts said. Xerox and Hanson declined comment on the rumors.

Hanson is one of Britain’s largest industrial concerns, with pretax profit of $1.5 billion on sales of $12.5 billion. It is already a player in the office consumer products market with its Smith Corona typewriters and word processors, acquired when it took over SCM Corp. several years ago.

Xerox mainly makes and develops copiers and other office equipment, but also has a large financial services arm that owns the brokerage Furman Selz Holding Co. and property and casualty insurance firm Crum & Forster Inc.

The takeover speculation came on a day that Xerox Corp. was unveiling what it calls the world’s quietest ribbon typewriter, a machine nearly as quiet as a computer keyboard.

The typewriters introduced Wednesday use a patented technology that gives the printer heads the vibrational characteristics of a hammer weighing nearly 35 pounds, Xerox said. That makes them vibrate at a pitch nearly six octaves lower than usual, almost inaudible to the human ear.